


a slow show

by waferkya



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 17:38:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5506820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waferkya/pseuds/waferkya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The nights always raise in a deep and starry blue.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	a slow show

The nights always raise in a deep and starry blue. Luke is content with his new home. Looking up, he can pretend he’s peering at the farthest fringes of the galaxy. The sky is bright, it keeps him company.

Luke stands in contemplation, high above the oceans and in the middle of every storm.

The cliff where he has taken root is steep and inhospitable and exactly what he’d been looking for. Luke is often barefoot in the spiky, dark green grass that dusts the rocks. The oceans rumble and roar, the saltwater burns his eyes and bites at the joints of his mechanical hand.

This is penance. A pond wouldn’t do, he thought back then, so he came here, and begged the water to drown him.

He lives still.

Weakness drove him here and weakness is what keeps him here. His own weakness has ripped a hole in his body, a hole in his mind, and Luke is bleeding, he’s oozing out of himself. He feels so much, and he can’t control it. Like the whirpools of black water all around him, the frizzling waves, the slap of wind, Luke is a storm.

— children dropping to the ground, dead, dead and gone, the Force screaming and crying at the loss — and Ben is standing among the carnage, lightsaber drawn at his side, glowing red and furious — and Luke feels spineless, he feels useless scared weak and wrong, because his head is calling for death and his heart is shattered and his legs won’t move — _spineless_ — and he can’t look at Han and he can’t reach out to Leia in the Force, she’s shutting him out, she’s barricading herself in — _spineless_ , as his nephew flees, as his family crumbles, and he lives still —

There is no balance in a flood.

Luke is trembling. His robes are worn out at the kness from all the times he’s collapsed to the ground. Today is no different. Luke keeps himself upright and strong until he can’t do it anymore. He folds in on himself and weeps, and he’s just a weak, old man.

*

Luke wakes up with a jolt. For a moment, he doesn’t understand what he’s feeling. It’s not the numbness and it’s not the pity he became used to.

The Force is singing, and Luke is scared.

*

She finds him and it should feel like salvation, but instead, it’s a sentence. Luke welcomes her anyway, he uncovers his face and hides his fear behind a smile. He doesn’t come too close to her. He doesn’t touch the lightsaber.

Rey is no fool — _of course not_ — and Luke knows she notices. But she sheathes the saber without saying anything, and the first words out of her mouth stab at Luke’s chest, piercing him from side to side.

“I’m sorry.”

Luke’s stub of an arm throbs with anger, with shame.

“What for?” he asks, not looking at her. _Spineless, spineless_ , and he keeps his voice gentle but firm, even as he feels himself split at the seams.

She hesitates. She opens her mouth, looking for the words to encompass all that she’s feeling in one little sentence, and she fails. She opens her mouth again.

“I should’ve come looking for you years ago.”

She hasn’t even finished talking and Luke is already turning around to stare. Of all the things she could say —

But her face is calm, truly peaceful, her eyes wet with tears she refuses to shed.

The light in her explodes through the cracks in Luke’s chest.

“I shouldn’t have left,” he says. “I should never—I wasn’t ready. I’m not ready.”

“We don’t have to be alone anymore,” Rey says.

She smiles. It’s small and fragile, and tinged with sadness, but it resonates within the Force and engulfs him with warmth and just like that, Luke is forgiven.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Bingo challenge @ maridichallenge. How obvious is it that I love Luke Skywalker? Yeah, I know.


End file.
